Cover-Up Culture

The Lie That Keeps Abuse Alive

Photo taken by Annie Spratt

There is a reckoning happening in the church. I’ve been watching it play out almost every week in the headlines.

And it’s overdue.

Across churches, ministries, and Christian organizations, what has been hidden is being exposed—abuse, manipulation, deception, misuse of power, spiritual coercion. For some, this reckoning feels sudden. For others, it feels inevitable. For many, it feels deeply painful.

I’ve watched this from a distance.

And I’ve lived it up close.

I’ve sat with leaders I deeply love and respect as they’ve talked about “incidents” within their churches or organizations—often things they didn’t personally do, but things that happened on their watch. And more than once, I’ve heard those moments framed as “attacks of the Enemy meant to stop the work of God.”

And here is where the lie takes root. Is the uncovering of truth really the tactic of the Enemy? Or is it the work of the Holy Spirit?

We must be honest enough to ask the question.

Because Scripture is clear: the Spirit leads us into truth, not away from it. The Spirit exposes what is hidden—not to shame, but to heal. Not to destroy the church, but to refine it. Not to halt the work of God, but to purify it.

Yet I’ve watched a familiar pattern play out.

• A leader acknowledges an abuse.

• An issue comes to light.

• A failure is admitted—sometimes vaguely, sometimes selectively.

And then, almost immediately, a new and compelling vision is cast.

• A fresh initiative.

• A renewed call to revival.

• New metrics for growth.

• The next big thing.

Why? Because stopping to perform an honest autopsy—naming what actually went wrong, how it was allowed, who was harmed, and what systems enabled it—rarely looks like success in our leadership culture.

• So instead of slowing down, we speed up.

• Instead of grieving, we pivot.

• Instead of repenting, we rebrand.

And in doing so, we quietly preserve the very culture that made the abuse possible in the first place.

This is how cycles repeat.

Peacemaking and truth-telling come at an incredibly high price.

But it is a price leaders must be willing to pay.

Truth-telling is painful.

It costs reputation.

It costs momentum.

It costs influence.

It costs the illusion of control.

And it demands a level of honesty that many of us were never formed to practice.

We have to ask harder questions than “Did I personally do the abuse?”

We must ask:

• Did I look the other way?

• Did I minimize warning signs?

• Did I benefit from systems that silenced others?

• Did my leadership style discourage dissent?

• Did this happen on my watch?

• Did our culture reward performance over character?

• Did we confuse loyalty with faithfulness?

If we don’t address the culture—the people, the systems, the unspoken values—that cultivated a space where abuse could grow, then we are destined to repeat it.

Again.

And again.

And again.

Health is not accidental. It is cultivated.

And cultivating health requires listening—especially to voices that make us uncomfortable. Voices we don’t like. Voices that disrupt our narrative. Voices that don’t honor our platforms or protect our reputations. If the only voices we’re willing to hear are affirming ones, we are not leading—we are managing appearances.

We must be willing to tell the difficult truth. And then we must be willing to actually address it.

That means building people and systems that prioritize honesty over optics, accountability over charisma, formation over momentum, and faithfulness over success.

Not to protect institutions.

Not to preserve brands.

But to bring credit to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Because the gospel does not need our cover-ups. It needs our courage.

And perhaps the most faithful thing leaders can do in this moment is not to move forward faster—but to stop, tell the truth, listen well, and let the Spirit do the slow, holy work of healing what we were too afraid to face.